Friday, 12 May 2017

Skull Meister

A recently popular Hand Trap.

Effect

DARK
Fiend Effect Monster
Level 4
1700 / 400
During either player's turn, when a card effect is activated in your opponent's Graveyard, you can send this card from your hand to the Graveyard to negate the effect.

Description

Skull Meister recently gained popularity with the rise of the True Draco archetype. It is capable of stopping the Spells/Traps of True Draco to resolve with their destruction effects.

It debuted in Extra Pack Volume 4 as a Rare back in 2011.

It also doubles as a negation for Fairy Tail - Snow and Interrupted Kaiju Slumber. Paloezoic traps will also have a hard time reviving under its watchful eyes. Artifact engine may have died down since Ash Blossom and Joyous Spring's debut, but its chances of making a comeback is pretty low as long as Skull Meister remains popular.

Careful placement of card effects is a chain can render Skull Meister useless. Hiding a grave effect at Chain Link 1, then placing another effect that activates at the same time at Chain Link 2, Skull Meister is unable to react to the card in the first Chain Link.

Skull Meister is also an effective -1. This is a factor that deterred some from playing it at all.

I personally feel that the above two factors compounded together makes this card quite terrible in the current meta. Yes, it may be better than Ghost Ogre and Snow Rabbit and I do acknowledge its effectiveness. After all, it can negate any graveyard effect. I just probably won't play it myself.

Previously, Skull Meister was a strategy some players employed to counter Mermail-Atlantean decks by denying them of the search via Atlantean Dragoon's effect.

Some players employ a much more interesting strategy that I admire. In Invoked decks, they run Skull Meister to increase the DARK monster count of the deck, alongside Aleister the Invoker, for them to run Allure of Darkness for draw power.
It has decent stats and is a Level 4, meaning that it can still serve some use outside of its effect.

Conclusion

Being a "send this card from your hand to the Graveyard" instead of "discarding" makes it unusable under the effects of Macro Cosmos.

Skull Meister has the ability to negate any graveyard effect. While it is mainly used upon the True Dracos, just keep an eye out if you are piloting 'innocent' decks like Lightlord, Kozmo and Dark World.

The -1 doesn't faze decks that can easily generate resources and advantage with a single card, such as the Zoodiacs or Zoodiac True Draco.